Watsonville Rotary Club: Book Talk

I recently spoke at the Watsonville Rotary Club about Five Hundred Moons. I had told the president that if he was ever in a bind about a canceled speaker for a weekly meeting, I could fill in at a moment’s notice. In just two weeks’ time, such an occurrence materialized.

I would have preferred talking about my novel without a microphone (it’s a smallish room), but because it was a hybrid meeting with both Zoom and in-person attendance, I had to use the audio system, which was not of good quality. Despite the occasional feedback through the amplifier and the deep guttural sound coming from the mic, I muddled through.

I passed out copies to each table and gave the usual talk about my writing process, followed by a brief summation of the storylines. My fellow Rotarians were expecting me to do some readings, so I asked people to shout out numbers from one to eight hundred. I then turned to that corresponding page, took a quick glance at the paragraphs, and tried my best to provide a little background before reading. The process turned out better than I expected. Hopefully, it impressed the audience in that I didn’t pick out what I would deem my best excerpts, but instead, relied on a random selection of my prose. Luckily, no one picked a passage that I thought to be sub-par.

Afterward, I answered a few questions, mostly about how I came up with the plot and the research that was involved. A few people actually bought a copy—maybe because I offered to donate $10 to the club for every book sold!

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